Ecosia is a popular search engine that funds tree planting initiatives around the world with the profits they generate.
Their search engine is powered by Microsoft Bing (which might not be the most ethical tech company) - so if you are interested in how to improve your SEO ranking on the likes of Ecosia, then you need to figure out what works on Bing.
But if you want to run search ads on Ecosia, then you basically just need to start advertising on Microsoft Bing. I've listed some instructions below (and note: this is something I can do on your behalf if needed - I offer paid Ecosia ads management as a service).
Showing the Ecosia interface with a shopping (product) ad visible, and text ads, when searching for organic coffee brands (note I am based in Spain - hence the Spanish ads).
How to Setup Search Ads on Ecosia via Bing
First you will need to setup a Bing advertising account. Usually there are some nice coupon codes available, offering 50% discount on whatever you spend in month 1 (eg spend $150 in the first 30 days and you will receive a free $150 credit in your account).
You can sign up to Microsoft Ads here and then you will either create a new campaign from scratch, or you can also import an existing campaign from Google Ads.
When configuring your campaign on Bing, you need to tweak your "Ad distribution settings" to only target partner sites Bing, AOL, and Yahoo! syndicated search partners.
Then after waiting a while you will then open up the Publisher Website report which shows where your ads have shown (similar to a Placement report within Google Ads) and from here you can choose to exclude all sites apart from Ecosia.
How Many People Use Ecosia?
Ecosia is popular in Europe and has around 20 million active monthly users.
As you can probably imagine, the interesting thing with targeting ads on Ecosia is that you can be fairly sure as to the type of person who is using Ecosia - it's very likely that they are interested in issues relating to climate change, sustainability, and so on.
So even if search volumes and eyes on your ads may be lower, you can be sure that the demographic is going to be more aligned with your brand if you have some kind of sustainability focus.
What is the Best Ads Strategy for Ecosia?
Using Ecosia for running search (text) ads isn't going to be that different from running ads on the likes of Google and other search engines - you are targeting specific keywords that a user is looking for at that particular moment.
The precise strategy you use will therefore depend on what you're looking to achieve - do you want to reach people during their research/consideration phase? If so you might be targeting keywords like "ethical barefoot shoes" or "best barefoot shoes".
If you want to ensure that someone, when ready to buy a product, is looking for you by brand or by product name, you want to ensure your ad is there to capture the sale - otherwise you might risk them not finding it (or potentially another advertiser "hijacking" the sale!).
So, many see brand/product search keywords as a good insurance policy, to protect your brand name from competitors.
Showing Product Ads on Ecosia for the query barefoot shoes.
Similarly to Google Ads you can also run product or shopping ad campaigns. These are useful when you have a specific range of products you wish to sell - so if you are in the ecommerce space, and you align with sustainability-minded people then this would be a good ad format for you.
Most of these ads are based on cost-per-click model - you only pay when someone clicks on your advert. So cost is largely driven by search volumes, but you can also set daily budget caps - eg specifying you only want to spend €10 per day. Depending on the cost-per-click (CPC) for your search term/product, you might get 10 clicks at €1 each.
Hire an Ecosia Ads Consultant
I can help you to setup ads on the (more) ethical search engine that is Ecosia - a very useful strategy if you are running some kind of B Corp or sustainable business, whereby one of your target audiences are climate-conscious or ethical consumers.
I can offer the setup of Ecosia ads within Bing, and then the ongoing management and optimisation of them on a monthly basis.
If you want to arrange a chat to discuss just reach out.
